Neutrally Buoyant vs Kneeling - What is Better whilst teaching Scuba Diving skills?

[boulderjohn]

These sorts of courses do not permit the time or the energy to teach a student trim or to hover.

As has been noted frequently in the past, teaching students while they are neutrally buoyant does not take any more time than teaching them while they are kneeling on the floor. You do not have to teach it as a separate skill. It happens while they are learning everything else.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Sorry I do not quiet agree.
Neutrally buyont has nothing to do with a specific trim in first place.
An object is described by the location of its centre of mass and the orientation (i.e. three angles) for a given imaginary line between the centre of mass and a reference point inside the "object" with respect to the outside coordinates.

Neutrally buyont means: no up and down movements (we ignore for a moment rhe fluctuations due to breathing as they always are present) in the water column and NO internal force used to stabilize the depth.
That is independent of the objects orientation! If you want you can stand up and be fully neutral.

Now you are talking about horizontal trim. That means you want to achieve an objects orientation neutrally horizontal as well, that means without using fins and/or hands to maintan that. Fine that is a good skill to master, especially because it helps(!) to be easier neutral if you stop kicking, because you want to observe something. And it helps to not disturb or damage the underwater world. I agree. It should be taught that this is a goal and how to achieve it. I agree again. If you need additional force to maintain the desired trim position, then your trim is unstable, not neccessarily the buyoncy. And because of using force to maintain the trim position, it has secondary impact on your buyoncy as well, as you start using some force that goes up or down as well automatically.

But its physically wrong to say one is only neutrally buyont if one has a horizontal trim position. If we want to teach this in a good way, we should be precise in the physical definition as well.

Let's discuss this offline and loop back when we converge. I don't want the exchanges to be viewed as bickering or detracting from the overall topic. But it is something important (to me at least) to discuss.

 

[crofrog]

As a recent student, I would have found it distracting to try to find and maintain neutral buoyancy while learning and practicing the other skills. I don't think you can master neutral buoyancy in the confined water section. I'm still improving mine.

ETA: Heck, I had a hard time staying on my knees in the pool. Had to overweight in order to keep me down and stop me from rocking over to one side while swiping for the lost regulator!

There are lots of other people who where taught NB and don’t have the training scars you have

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

There are lots of other people who where taught NB and don’t have the training scars you have

That's because they don't know that it is supposed to be a big deal. That's the beauty of students who have zero knowledge about diving. Whatever you do, they consider normal (example, the dive planning document I provided, one of my students showed it to his friends who thought it was great. He was surprised thinking all instructors did that).

I began my confined water sessions with the float and then the swimi. As students finished the swim, I'd individually weight them and get them floating horizontally. They would just look at me and once they achieved neutral buoyancy and trimmed, I'd give them the ok signal and have the DM keep an eye on all of them. I'd line them all up.

None of them thought this was a big deal.

Until a IDC staff instructor was teaching DMC's and had them all on their knees. They thought they were remedial open water students. When I explained to them that no, these people were becoming dive pros, ever single student had a confused look on their face which still makes me laugh. I'm laughing now as it was so comical yet not funny.

I tell my students that neutral buoyancy is the Jerry Seinfeld skill. You just do nothing. It is my responsibility to be retentive about weighting them and distributing the weight and get their limbs in a position so that they do nothing, just breath.

It isn't rocket science.

 

[Doc Harry]

Just a quick anecdote about this subject.

Once I was taking PADI course, and the instructor had all us students kneel on the sand for instruction. I didn't like this, so I floated up off the sand and hovered motionless about one foot above the sand.

Suddenly a student Nazi, I mean PADI DM student, swam over, grabbed me, shook me hard, and motioned for me to get back down on the sand while yelling something unintelligible to me.

He got hard open-hand strike to his face, and he released me. He also got stern words when we surfaced. "Don't ever f$&@ing touch me, or anyone else, ever again." That was the last PADI course I ever took.

 

[gamon]

He got hard open-hand strike to his face, and he released me

Geez I'd hate to be the OOA diver that grabs your primary regulator.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Just a quick anecdote about this subject.

Once I was taking PADI course, and the instructor had all us students kneel on the sand for instruction. I didn't like this, so I floated up off the sand and hovered motionless about one foot above the sand.

Suddenly a student Nazi, I mean PADI DM student, swam over, grabbed me, shook me hard, and motioned for me to get back down on the sand while yelling something unintelligible to me.

He got hard open-hand strike to his face, and he released me. He also got stern words when we surfaced. "Don't ever f$&@ing touch me, or anyone else, ever again." That was the last PADI course I ever took.

So this is where I take issue with all agencies' training materials.

Nowhere do they discuss the value of a BFK in addressing disputes that occur underwater.

Had you had the Rambo IV scuba edition survival knife strapped to your chest, that DMC would not have laid a finger on you.

(People, just because not all of you are Captain Obvious, I am joking - though I did read of an incident where one diver did threaten another underwater with a BFK and they are on the same dive boat! How that did not result in criminal charges is beyond me).

Geez I'd hate to be the OOA diver that grabs your primary regulator.

In all seriousness, what was he supposed to do? Helping the DMC practice clearing a flooded mask seems appropriate. And again, I'm being serious here. The conversation back on the surface/boat would have been incredibly unpleasant for that person.

If that was my DMC I would use that as a teaching moment that you don't manhandle clients.

 

[Allen-1]

Just a quick anecdote about this subject.

Once I was taking PADI course, and the instructor had all us students kneel on the sand for instruction. I didn't like this, so I floated up off the sand and hovered motionless about one foot above the sand.

Suddenly a student Nazi, I mean PADI DM student, swam over, grabbed me, shook me hard, and motioned for me to get back down on the sand while yelling something unintelligible to me.

He got hard open-hand strike to his face, and he released me. He also got stern words when we surfaced. "Don't ever f$&@ing touch me, or anyone else, ever again." That was the last PADI course I ever took.

Was that in Florida?